Gut microbes may predict whether or not children will suffer undernutrition as they grow, according to a study with twins in Malawi.

Tens of trillions of microbes live in the gut, where they synthesize vitamins and process nutrients in the diet to keep the body healthy. These microbes and their genes, collectively known as the gut microbiota, begin to colonize the intestinal tract at birth.

Researchers long have known that a lack of food is not the sole contributor to childhood undernutrition; infections and intestinal problems that prevent nutrient absorption are also thought to play a role.

Faulty microbes

A 2013 study pointed to a dysfunctional collection of gut microbes as an underlying cause of childhood undernutrition. These children possessed communities of gut microbes that did not mature as they grew and that couldn’t be restored to good health even after standard treatment with nutrient-dense therapeutic foods.

The new research, involving infants and children in Malawi, in sub-Saharan Africa, uncovers new clues to the pathology of undernutrition by looking at gut bacteria targeted by a key immune system molecule, IgA (short for Immunoglobulin A).

The scientists also demonstrated that beneficial gut microbes identified in fecal samples from healthy children could be used to treat undernutrition in mice.

“Undernutrition robs children of achieving their full potential,” says Jeffrey Gordon, director of the Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology and the Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research at Washington University in St. Louis.

“Many children who have been saved with current therapies suffer from the long-term consequences of undernutrition such as stunted growth, neurocognitive problems, and weakened immune systems. Our findings point to the possibility of developing more effective treatments for undernutrition using beneficial microbes—or next-generation probiotics—in addition to therapeutic foods.”

Antibody wall

IgA, an antibody, is secreted in large quantities in the gastrointestinal tract, where it binds to gut microbes and food particles, preventing them from traversing the gut lining. In essence, IgA is part of a “wall” that separates the gut microbiota from its human host, allowing microbial cells and human cells to peacefully co-exist.

For the new study, published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, researchers explored gut microbes targeted by IgA in pairs of twins in which one twin became severely undernourished during the first three years of life and the other remained healthy. As a comparison, they also studied pairs of healthy young twins who remained well-nourished.

The findings show that IgA’s interactions with several types of gut bacteria, including Enterobacteriaceae, correlate with the development of undernutrition. Enterobacteriaceae is a large family of bacteria found in the gut that includes E. coli, Salmonella, Shigella, and other pathogenic species.

In healthy people, such strains of bacteria often don’t cause problems, but in undernourished children, their effects can be devastating.

The researchers’ discovery is bolstered by additional studies in germ-free mice raised in sterile environments. Transplanting IgA-bound gut microbes, purified from the gut microbiota of undernourished children, into the mice led to dramatic weight loss, rapid disruption of the lining of the small intestine and colon, and sepsis in mice fed the same nutrient-poor diet as the children.

Diagnostic value

The weight loss, sepsis, and the breakdown of the gut lining in undernourished mice could be prevented, however, by administering just two IgA-targeted strains of bacteria that were well-represented in the gut microbiota from healthy children.

The researchers also noted that the types of gut microbes targeted by IgA shifted over time as the Malawian infants grew into toddlers, and differed in healthy children compared with those who were undernourished. This suggests that identifying IgA-targeted microbes may have diagnostic value in predicting which children are likely to develop undernutrition, even before symptoms occur.

“This study demonstrates the usefulness of mining the microbiota for potential therapeutic agents using the lenses of the gut immune system, specifically the IgA it produces, as a guide,” says first author Andrew L. Kau, instructor of medicine. “Results from the children and the mice can be used to design follow-up clinical studies to evaluate this approach.”

“These beneficial microbes are important leads, but more work is needed to determine whether they represent effective, safe treatments in children,” Gordon says.

“Nonetheless, this study provides the first evidence that benchmark measurements of interactions between a molecule in the gut immune system and gut microbes may predict which children are likely to develop undernutrition as they age.

“If we can intervene early to repair the gut microbiota in undernourished children or those at risk for the condition, we may be able to provide new and more effective ways for achieving healthy growth and healthy immune function.”

The work, funded largely by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, also involved scientists at the University of California, Davis, University of Malawi in Africa, and University of Tampere in Finland.

This study supports, in my mind, the theory that many people are sick these days due to pesticides like glyphosate killing off specific beneficial gut bacteria.

Two studies published in the past six months reveal a disturbing finding: glyphosate-based herbicides such as Roundup® appear to suppress the growth of beneficial gut bacteria, leading to the overgrowth of extremely pathogenic bacteria.

Late last year, new research indicated that glyphosate-based herbicides such as Roundup® may be contributing to the overgrowth of harmful bacteria, both in GM-produced food and our own bodies. By suppressing the growth of beneficial bacteria and encouraging the growth of pathogenic ones, including deadly botulism-associated Clostridum botulinum, GM agriculture may be contributing to the alarming increase, wordwide, in infectious diseases that are resistant to conventional antibiotics, such as Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE), which the CDC’s director recently termed a ‘nightmare bacteria.’

Now another new study published in the journal Anaerobe titled, “Glyphosate suppresses the antagonistic effect of Enterococcus spp. On Clostridum botulinum,” confirms this herbicide’s ability to adversely affect gut bacteria populations (i.e. generate dysbios). In an attempt to explain why Clostridum botulinum associated diseases in cattle have increased during the last 10-15 years in German cattle, researchers theorized that since normal intestinal flora is a critical factor in preventing Clostridum botulinum colonization in conditions such as infantile botulism perhaps the ingestion of strong biocides such as glyphosate found in GM cattle feed could reduce their natural, lactic acid bacteria dependent immune defenses as pathogenic microbes.

They reported on the toxicity of glyphosate to Enteroccocus, the most prevalent lactic acid bacteria species in the gastrointestinal tract of cattle, and concluded “Ingestion of this herbicide could be a significant predisposing factor that is associated with the increase in C. botulinum mediated diseases in cattle.”

Of course, the implications of this finding extend beyond the health of cattle or poultry. The majority of American consumers who don’t even have the legal right to know through truthful labeling if they are eating GMOs, are consuming non-organic, Roundup Ready soy, canola, cottonseed or soy on a daily basis, and therefore are being exposed to glyphosate residues year round; additionally, animals fed Roundup sprayed GMO plants will bioaccumulate glyphosate and/or glyphosate metabolites, adding to the consumer’s bodily burden of these gut flora-altering, highly toxic chemicals.

GMO Herbicides Kill More Than ‘Weeds,’ Are Broad-Spectrum Biocides …

One of the most concerning adverse effects of glyphosate most relevant to the topic of this article is its destructive effects on the fertility of soil itself. In an earlier expose titled, Un-Earthed: Is Monsanto’s Glyphosate Destroying the Soil?, concerning findings published in the journal Current Microbiology were discussed showing that Roundup® herbicide is having a negative impact on the microbiodiversity of the soil, including microorganisms of food interest, and specifically those found in raw and fermented foods.

One of the key implications of this finding is that since many of the beneficial bacteria that make up the 100 trillion bacteria in our gut necessary for health come from our food, and these bacteria-rich foods nourish and help maintain the flora in our gut, the removal of key beneficial microorganisms from the soil will likely result in profoundly disrupting the bacteria-mediated infrastructure of our health. …

Our disastrous health situation, I suspect, is more than just companies misleading and making people sick to make money. It seems more likely to me that this is a covert bio war attack on all Americans, perhaps by a foreign power that is manipulating our system. Just consider that possibility, and use your patriotism to motivate you to stop the invasion of sickness.

Eat organic as much as possible, but you will still be exposed. Glyphosate is everywhere.

Across the U.S. it’s used commonly on corn, soybeans, cotton and rice, to the tune of 180-185 millions of pounds in 2007 — more tonnage than any other pesticide.

And that’s only use on farms. RoundUp is also the second most commonly used pesticide in homes and gardens across the country. …

EPA agrees to take action — eventually

EPA has set 2015 for deciding if glyphosate should continue to be sold, or should have its use in some way limited.

We know the regulatory process can be woefully slow, even when science is very clear that a pesticide is harming human health. Yet this remains one important route for grassroots efforts. Meanwhile, educate yourself and your friends about the serious threats posed by Monsanto’s biggest seller, and help build the public voice to get rid of it once and for all.

You can spend the extra money to eat organic, but how do you *breathe* organic?

“(Roundup) is out there in significant levels. It is out there consistently,” said Paul Capel, environmental chemist and head of the agricultural chemicals team at the U.S. Geological Survey Office, part of the U.S. Department of Interior.

Capel found that glyphosate, the key ingredient in Roundup, was found in every stream sample examined in Mississippi in a two-year period and also in most air samples.

“So people are exposed to it through inhalation,” Capel told Reuters. “This study is one of the first to document the consistent occurrence of this chemical in streams, rain and air throughout the growing season. It is used so heavily and studied so little.”

Though the glyphosate in its original form is not listed by the U.S. EPA as highly toxic when inhaled, it may become a major problem once inside the body. In the presence of human saliva, glyphosate is known to metabolize by mixing with nitrites in the human stomach and forming a new compound known as N-nitrosoglyphosate — a highly toxic substance that can cause tumors.

Standard carcinogenic tests involving Roundup using rats would not detect this effect since rats do not secrete nitrite in their saliva.

]]>https://xenophilius.wordpress.com/2015/03/03/gut-microbes-predict-undernutrition/feed/0microbestudyxeno735REWARD: 1st to answer this question earns cash moneyhttps://xenophilius.wordpress.com/2015/03/02/1st-to-answer-this-question-earns-cash-money-reward/
https://xenophilius.wordpress.com/2015/03/02/1st-to-answer-this-question-earns-cash-money-reward/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 11:32:28 +0000http://xenophilius.wordpress.com/2015/03/04/1st-to-answer-this-question-earns-cash-money-reward/Continue reading →]]>I need a real answer, an answer that I believe does exist, but one that the company that makes the product about which I have the question could not or would not give me. The correct answer could save lives and a lot of suffering. It might also end a global scam to defraud the public by an entire industry. … Or it may just be that I’m misunderstanding something.

Question: If an 80mg/dL control solution for the Relion Prime glucose meter gives readings multiple times over multiple days that are all about 34 points higher than the actual concentration of the solution, why isn’t the reading also about 34 points high for my blood tests done right after the controls with ReliOn Prime glucose test strips from the same bottle?

Yes, I’m turning control solution mode on correctly on the meter when using the solution, turning it off for blood testing. I’m tipping the control solution over and back 5 times instead of shaking it before use. Washing my hands with warm soapy water and drying them with a clean paper towel. Using the second drop of blood for tests since the first can read falsely high from interstitial fluid. I’m not dehydrated or anemic. I’m an adult male over 30 years old.

The strips bottle says the normal control solution, which the box says is 80 mg/dL, should read 96 to 120, which is 16 to 40 points above reality. Actual control readings were 108, 108, 116, 111, 114, 111, 128, 122, 117, 115, 112, 113, 112, 117, 112. The average of these readings is 114.4. The answers about this I’ve found on line just say to accept what the company says, that this just means the strips are working.

That is not an answer.

The company took 1/2 hour today to tell me I should not adjust the difference for my blood because my blood test results would then be inaccurate. Why? Because they are different tests. WTH? Of course they are different tests! By definition any two tests are different tests.

That is not an answer.

The strips in one bottle are from the same lot and use the same reaction for both blood and control. Am I the only one that sees the raving absurdity of this? If you can show me how I’m the one being absurd and if you have the details to explain why, details that make sense in the physical world, I’ll gladly pay up.

If you are chemist or glucose meter/strip maker whistle-blower who would like to confess to a global conspiracy to raise everyone’s blood sugar by 34 points, putting everyone suddenly into the pre-diabetic range to sell more meters and strips, submit a WikiLeaks report. Or contact them. Nevermind. You can’t. Someone shut their servers for the submissions down? I don’t have the resources to help you, but do drop me a hint about the truth if you can. Has all of my work to try to have a normal fasting blood sugar actually paid off? Would I’d see the truth if the meter wasn’t rigged?

You can assume my hematocrit was tested recently and is normal (44.5%) and FYI, the company Arkray says the strips use a glucose oxidase reaction. Strips distributed by Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. 855.776.0662.]

Current Bounty

REWARD: The crisp $20 bill I have in my hand right now.

I may raise the bounty over time. Feel free to donate to this bounty. I accept PayPal research donations and every cent you give (minus those damn PayPal fees) will go to this cause from now until I have my answer. Donors large and small will get all of the answers I receive compiled with names and email removed.

To win: email your answer to xeno735@yahoo.com with “Bounty Answer” in the subject line.

No deadline, I’ll update this post and send the winner the reward as soon as I have an answer I can really believe, understand and use.

]]>https://xenophilius.wordpress.com/2015/03/02/1st-to-answer-this-question-earns-cash-money-reward/feed/0IMG_6123xeno735Best Audio Mixing Lesson from an iPhone App: hearEQ + Before and After Sample Mixes of a Xeno Song.https://xenophilius.wordpress.com/2015/03/01/best-audio-mixing-lesson-from-an-iphone-app-heareq-hear-before-and-after-examples/
https://xenophilius.wordpress.com/2015/03/01/best-audio-mixing-lesson-from-an-iphone-app-heareq-hear-before-and-after-examples/#commentsSun, 01 Mar 2015 07:43:58 +0000http://xenophilius.wordpress.com/?p=51342Continue reading →]]>For years my original songs recorded in my home studio sounded cheap and homemade. So I took some recording lessons and learned to use a multi-band compressor. That helped. But it still sounded bad. So I bought treatments for my room and made a recording booth and picked up an expensive U87 microphone and an expensive Neve preamp, and a not so expensive used Toft ATC-2 for my hardware compressor (for that 70’s disco vocal sound I love), and it did sound better, but something big was missing. So I compared my sound against other professional mixes and tried a modeling EQ that overlays the EQ of a different mix onto mine. That sounded better, a bit, but still … cheap. So next, I stripped everything down, took off all effects, and tested every hardware and software setting one by one, recording each test. This helped me realize that I was really screwing up my sound with some cheap plugins and some wrong settings. Then it was much better (hear the “BEFORE” example below), but STILL… not really there yet. At that point I sort of gave up and decided that perhaps making a professional sounding CD in my home studio just isn’t in the cards.

But tonight I was taking a break from my Spock-a-thon, trying to avoid doing my taxes and stumbled upon an app for 99 cents that I took a chance and tried. Just a few minutes with hearEQ gave me a new way to approach my mixes. After playing with it, I got excited to go mix again, adjusting each instrument’s EQ and then finally lowering the volume to where I could barely hear it to be sure everything was balanced correctly.

RESULTS: Here is my song BEFORE and the same song with a new mix AFTER my brief training with hearEQ.

With already having lessons, including reading and absorbing the book “The Art of Mixing, 2nd edition” by Gibson, this app just reminded me of things I had learned but was not applying.

I’m not saying the second one is awesome enough yet that anyone would want to buy it for 99 cents on iTunes, but I think it is an improvement over the BEFORE version.

The song, by the way, was written for a comedy troupe I toured with years ago for one of their skits. The character “Warlord Zang” was played by the actress Amber Kloss, whose false mustache kept falling off during performances when the glue melted under the lights. This still cracks me up.

]]>https://xenophilius.wordpress.com/2015/03/01/best-audio-mixing-lesson-from-an-iphone-app-heareq-hear-before-and-after-examples/feed/0IMG_6012xeno735Lenoard Nimoy (March 26, 1931 – February 27, 2015) *sniff*https://xenophilius.wordpress.com/2015/02/28/lenoard-nimoy-march-26-1931-february-27-2015-sniff/
https://xenophilius.wordpress.com/2015/02/28/lenoard-nimoy-march-26-1931-february-27-2015-sniff/#commentsSat, 28 Feb 2015 06:05:15 +0000http://xenophilius.wordpress.com/?p=51334Continue reading →]]>I’ll confess that looked up to him like a father figure in some ways. He made it okay for me as a kid to think logically when the humans around me were suffering to understand the world through the fog of their emotional responses. His work was an inspiration in many other ways. I’ll never forget his amazing voice on the “In Search Of..” series and the interesting ideas he brought us.

I’m very sad to hear the original “Spock” has died. Sometimes it feels like we have such a short time here to make a difference. Lenoard Nimoy did.

You knew he sang, right?

Now is a good time for a Spock-a-thon. I’ll be watching all the Spock I can this weekend while I do my taxes. Here’s where to watch the original Star Trek episodes.

Enjoy!

]]>https://xenophilius.wordpress.com/2015/02/28/lenoard-nimoy-march-26-1931-february-27-2015-sniff/feed/0nimoymicxeno735nimoyThe Great Blood Glucose Meter Conspiracy (GBGMC)https://xenophilius.wordpress.com/2015/02/27/the-great-blood-glucose-meter-conspiracy-gbgmc/
https://xenophilius.wordpress.com/2015/02/27/the-great-blood-glucose-meter-conspiracy-gbgmc/#commentsFri, 27 Feb 2015 05:52:39 +0000http://xenophilius.wordpress.com/2015/02/27/the-great-blood-glucose-meter-conspiracy-gbgmc/Continue reading →]]>If you are on insulin or other medications, don’t do anything stupid based on what I’m about to propose. Consult your doctor.

Okay. What if your glucose meter is lying to you? I mean beyond the typical complaints about the FDA allowing meters to be 20% (plus or minus – that’s a huge 40% spread) compared to labs. What if… all glucose meters on the market were programmed to be artificially 30-38 points high 95% of the time?

Strange idea, right? Well, this would explain a lot of my frustrating experiences over the past 8 months of testing. It would explain why totally normal readings pop up from time to time. It would explain why I can work really hard at it and get down into the “normal” 90s … and feel scary low, like I’m going to pass out, like I can’t even move. It would explain why my control solution (~80mg/dL according to the side of the box ) read 116, 118, and 111 mg/dL on the meter this morning! WTH!?? That makes my blood readings of 102, 101 and 104 actually 66, 63, and 73. No wonder I felt dizzy! (I had 1/4 pint camel milk last night, got plenty of sleep, and had walked 14,707 steps the day before according to my FitBit.)

A GBGMC would explain the bizarre situation that the people who send me the test solution demand to know my home address and won’t ship to a PO box “because the boxes are too small” (huh?) and why they do not know the glucose concentration of the control sample they sent me. I was told they are never asked that question! Just make sure your reading is in the “normal” range on the bottle for the test strips. Jesus, is my country really this brain damaged?? A *control* solution is a standard, a known fairly exact quantity by which you adjust your instrument’s readings.

Where is the profit in that kind of scheme/scam? Sales: Meters, test strips, kick backs, big money.

Question everything.

I have given the company that makes Wallmart’s Relion Prime test strips several opportunities to explain this. I specifically asked why I should not adjust my blood sugar reading down 30 points if my control solution is high by 30 points. The answer, and we went around and around for 30 minutes just now, is that the reading would be inaccurate if I did that. Why? Because they are two different reactions. That’s not an answer. The strips use the same chemical reaction for real blood that they do for the control. Neither is it an answer that the FDA allows a 20% variability, because the control solution is fairly consistent over three days, my multiple readings are all around 112.

Of course, I may have gotten a bad control solution that was really ~112mg/dL and in that case the readings are close to accurate and we all may just have organ and nervous system damage from vaccines, nitrates/nitrites, or radioactive cesium from Fukishima.

Next day at lunch: With a new bottle of strips (strips in each bottle are supposed to be very similar in their readings) when I test the control solution (~80mg/dL) I get 145, 128, 122, and 117. Then I test my blood sugar: 103 and 109.

If we throw out the low and high value, the average for the control solution is reading 125 with this bottle of strips, and if the actual concentration of the solution is 80, then my reading average of 106 puts me at 61. I don’t feel light headed, however, so I don’t believe that.

I was told by the company that distributes the control solution that it is made to be very stable and the concentration does not change and that it is indeed about 80mg/dL as it says on the package, not about 90mg/dL. So if the control solution was, say 85 mg/dL, then my 106 reading before lunch is in reality about 66mg/dL. As 70 is the low side of normal, so this could be about right.

If you are struggling with “pre-diabetes” I’d seriously ask if you really are. Get the control solution and test the first few strips of every new bottle. It may seem like a waste of money for the strips… until you realize that your lying meter may be leading you down a crazy trail of expensive supplements and so on.

The company’s response so far is that you can’t just adjust your blood reading based on the difference between the control solution’s reading and the control solution’s concentration, but they haven’t been able to explain why. Physically, chemically, why??? “Because the reading would be inaccurate.” Why would it be inaccurate? “Because they are different tests.” No, the test type is the same, it is a glucose oxidase reaction, only the adjustment factor for the range is different. This still does not explain why my actual blood sugar reading is not 30 points lower than the meter is reporting. The company confirms that nothing in the “other” ingredients raises the glucose reading above 80mg/dL.

I do understand that your hematocrit, (HCT or Ht), the volume that red blood cells take up in your blood, can vary and this has an influence on your readings, more so with some glucose measurement methods than others. (link) A normal HCT is 45% (40.7 to 50.3) for men and 40% (36.1 to 44.3) for women. This is the percentage of packed red blood cells and conditions including leukemia, malnutrition, water intoxication, bleeding and higher altitudes can lower your Ht. With fewer blood cells, your readings can be falsely high (link). With too few red blood cells, you will have anemia, a shortage of hemoglobin protein which is on your red blood cells. Here are some tips from the FDA:

Problem

Results

Recommendation

Test strip not fully inserted into meter

false low

always be sure test strip is fully inserted in meter

Patient sample site (for example, the fingertip) is contaminated with sugar

false high

always clean and dry test site before sampling

Not enough blood applied to strip

false low

repeat test with a new sample

Batteries low on power

error codes

change batteries and repeat sample collection

Test strips/Control solutions stored at temperature extremes

false high/low

store kit and components according to directions

Patient is dehydrated

false high

stat venous sample on main lab analyzer

Patient in shock

false low

stat venous sample on main lab analyzer

Squeezing fingertip too hard because blood is not flowing

false low

repeat test with a new sample from a new stick

Sites other than fingertips

high/low

results from alternative sites may not match finger stick results

Test strip/Control solution vial cracked

false high/low

always inspect package for cracks, leaks, etc.

Anemia/decrease hematocrit

false high

venous sample on main lab analyzer

Polycythemia/increased hematocrit

false low

venous sample on main lab analyzer

If dehydration raises hematocrit (link) and gives a false high reading, why does a lower hematocrit (fewer blood cells) also give a false high glucose reading?

I’m lucky to have a nice seven year record of my HCT at least once per year since 2009. Nothing too unusual, but it does change a bit within the normal range. As of my last test on 1/26/15 I was 44.4%. On 6/24/14 was 43.2% and 9/14/14 was 45.8%, in other words, pretty darn normal.

Based on experiments, one group strongly recommended,

“that clinical professionals choose glucose systems carefully and interpret glucose measurements with extreme caution when the patient’s hematocrit value changes, particularly if there is a simultaneous change in glucose level.”

Fine, but that’s not my issue. Another person on Amazon reported something similar, “… I called the company directly and they sent the control solution with instructions. The solution has 80 mg/ml. The meter read 130, 141, 129!!!”

So, that person’s bottle of strips was pretty consistently 50-60 points high. If they have a normal hematocrit and get a reading of 130, doesn’t that mean the person’s real blood glucose number is between 70 and 80? What am I missing here?

]]>https://xenophilius.wordpress.com/2015/02/27/the-great-blood-glucose-meter-conspiracy-gbgmc/feed/0IMG_5858xeno735hematocritHow to build a personal offline doomsday survival archivehttps://xenophilius.wordpress.com/2015/02/25/how-to-build-a-personal-offline-doomsday-survival-archive/
https://xenophilius.wordpress.com/2015/02/25/how-to-build-a-personal-offline-doomsday-survival-archive/#commentsWed, 25 Feb 2015 08:06:09 +0000http://xenophilius.wordpress.com/?p=51318Continue reading →]]>I listened to a pitch on “darkestdays.info” about survival after a massive solar storm, comet, super volcano, nuclear war or other man-made EMP destroys our power grid and electronics. I don’t think any of these things are likely to destroy both sides of the planet at once, but then again, where is the mighty T-rex now? I see only chickens. Thus, I got interested in preserving my own personal version of the collected works of human kind. How much useful knowledge can one person download these days … without breaking any laws?

In a scenario where all electronics get fried you will want a waterproof solar powered laptop that you will store in a Faraday cage (or EMP bag?) along with redundant USB drives that hold multiple copies your archive. There are much more important practical things you should do before this, of course, but that’s another topic.

To build your archive, here are some ideas: Buy a few 1 TB USB drives to hold your data (~$70.ea new, but check eBay for deals). Start your collection by downloading Wikipedia, the massive free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. It has, at this time, 4,727,647 articles in English. Here’s how I’m in the process of doing that:

Download some Peer to Peer (P2P) file sharing software (I tried Frostwire and another one. One of the two attempted to install a virus, so before rebooting (that’s when the virus installs itself big time) I had to spend time cleaning up with Hijack This! and and SpyBot Search and Destroy. After you have your P2P software sorted out, head over to http://www.kiwix.org/wiki/Main_Page. Open your P2P software and drag the link that says “…using BitTorrent” from the web page onto your P2P software. It will prompt you to begin the download. With Frostwire, just clicking that link didn’t do anything, I had to drag it over. You can download the entire English language Wikipedia archive (currently 47.0 GB) plus a reader this way. Note that you may end up paying a lot if you pay by the GB for data with your Internet provider. The point of using P2P software is that you can interrupt your download, even shut down your computer and then resume the download later. Like when Frostwire keep crashing.

Revealing state secrets have turned into Oscar acclaim for the makers of the Edward Snowden documentary “Citizenfour.”

Laura Poitras’ film documents her initial meeting in Hong Kong with Snowden, as well as journalist Glenn Greenwald. It’s an uncommonly intimate view of what became a historic and much debated act: Snowden leaking National Security Agency documents that revealed the previously undisclosed collection of Americans’ phone and email records.

“The disclosures that Edward Snowden reveals don’t only expose a threat to our privacy but to our democracy itself. When the most important decisions being made affecting all of us are made in secret, we lose our ability to check the powers that control,” Poitras said after accepting the best documentary Academy Award.

“Thank you to Edward Snowden for his courage, and for the many other whistleblowers, and I share this with Glenn Greenwald and other journalists who are exposing truth,” Poitras said to rousing applause.

Greenwald stood at Poitras’ side as she spoke.

It is Poitras’ first Oscar win. She was previously nominated for her film, “My Country, My Country”

Snowden was charged under the federal Espionage Act and is currently living in asylum in Russia. Because of the sensitive nature of the footage, Poitras made “Citizenfour” under intense secrecy and edited it in Germany.

The film shows glimpses of the former NSA contractor’s paranoia. When room service calls his room, Snowden unplugs his phone and he ducks under a blanket to enter passwords on his laptop.

Yet Snowden says in the film, and has repeated his sentiment since, that he was willing to be the target of criticism and derision and branded a traitor.

“If you’re not willing to be called some bad names to serve your country, you really don’t care that much about your country,” Snowden said at a forum earlier this month. “So bring the names on.”

Regarding the phrase “glimpses of the former NSA contractor’s paranoia” in this AP article, I’d point out that paranoia is a irrational fear. As Snowden knows more than any of us about government spying abilities, the use of the word “paranoia” is most likely not justified. Visual spying on passwords by covert technology watching the person’s fingers on the keyboard is, I think we should assume, a real ability of the NSA. The writer of this, then, is suffering from denial, a typical response to uncomfortable truths.

Perhaps the only way the country we have will work is if we re-define treason as including the act of passively allowing the destruction of one’s country.

None of this should be about Snowden. The real issue is that our government has way too much unchecked power now and that the checks and balances that were intended from the start have been lost. We can either restore meaningful and real checks and balances our our democracy will fail and fall.

What have you done today to fix your broken country?

]]>https://xenophilius.wordpress.com/2015/02/23/citizenfour-wins-oscar-for-best-documentary/feed/0citizenfourxeno735How to send an encrypted private emailhttps://xenophilius.wordpress.com/2015/02/17/how-to-send-a-secure-truly-private-email/
https://xenophilius.wordpress.com/2015/02/17/how-to-send-a-secure-truly-private-email/#commentsTue, 17 Feb 2015 00:00:54 +0000http://xenophilius.wordpress.com/?p=51304Continue reading →]]>This is how to use insecure email providers like Google and Yahoo to send secure encrypted messages. If you’d like to upgrade your email security, here’s how. First, get the Mailvelope add-on for Firefox. (There is one for Chrome as well, but doesn’t Google, who is forced to share with the NSA make Chrome?)

It works this way: You have two keys, one public, one private. Your public key everyone can see and use. If they want to send you a secure message, they use your public key to encrypt the message. Only someone with your private key can then decode something encrypted with your public key. Details here. Give it a try:

Directions:

Install the Firefox or Chrome plug-in.

Click on the “mailvelope-options” icon in your browser after the add-on is installed.

Click “Options” from the drop down menu.

Generate a key pair by providing your email address and a password.

Before secure communication can happen between two people, they must exchange their public keys with each other. My public key is below.

Copy and paste my public key below into the box provided, then click “Submit”.

Mailvelope extends the user interface of webmail (e.g. Gmail™, Yahoo® Mail etc.) with controls that allow for encryption and decryption of email, so open gmail or yahoo, and compose a new message to someone using Mailvelope.

Send me a test if you like to xeno735@yahoo.com.

Leave the subject line blank and click the icon inside the normal message area to get a pop up window. Clicking on the compose button will open a new popup with a separate editor. This ensures that the email creation and encryption process is completely isolated from the webmail provider.

Type your message (and paste in your public key if you want me to be able to reply with a secure message) and click Encrypt, then pick the email address to which you will send your message (for example, xeno735@yahoo.com). If you don’t see my address in the list, go back to step 7. You need to import my public key for this to work.

Click “Transfer” to move your encrypted message back into your email program (Gmail or yahoo).

Click send to send your encrypted message.

To decrypt the message should be easy. The help says, “Whenever Mailvelope detects an encrypted message in an email it marks it with an overlay” but the message I sent myself from Gmail did not show up this way exactly in Yahoo. Instead, there was a blank bar to the right of the message in Yahoo and when I clicked that, I was prompted to enter my password. If you mouse over the blank bar, you will see a key. You may have to close the email and open it again, then click on the encrypted message text. After entering my password, the message was sort of hidden to the right in a poorly formatted box, but I was able to see it. In Gmail, it worked as advertised.

]]>https://xenophilius.wordpress.com/2015/02/17/how-to-send-a-secure-truly-private-email/feed/0keygenerationxeno735Camel milk for diabetes (or impaired fasting glucose)https://xenophilius.wordpress.com/2015/02/16/camel-milk-for-diabetes-or-impaired-fasting-glucose/
https://xenophilius.wordpress.com/2015/02/16/camel-milk-for-diabetes-or-impaired-fasting-glucose/#commentsMon, 16 Feb 2015 23:16:29 +0000http://xenophilius.wordpress.com/?p=51225Continue reading →]]>I tried some raw US camel milk yesterday (about 1 pint around 6 pm) and this morning had my first normal blood sugar in a while 87, as compared to the past three days before that where I was around 113-114 with one crazy reading of 142 fasting. I had read that camel milk can help, but I didn’t really expect to find any. Then I had Valentine’s Day dinner at Mission: Heirloom and had a chance to speak to the owner briefly, Yrmis Barroeta. We didn’t talk about camel milk, but I noticed they were selling so I bought a pint and gave it a try. At $20/pint it was not cheap, but this was good stuff, and to have a normal fasting blood sugar was worth it.

Of course, my 87 mg/dL reading this morning may also have been from the hour long hike in the hills on a sunny day with friends the day before, the sprinting I did yesterday or the push-ups, or the nice 8 hours of sleep I got last night. The six sea scallops and fried plantain in cinnamon and coconut oil may have had something to do with it, or my good mood, or the snack of organic turkey meat with YucanCrunch crackers (100% yuca root fiber also from Mission Heirloom) and olive oil. The only way to tell is to repeat some of those things and keep testing.

Here is some information about camel milk and diabetes (or in my case, impaired fasting glucose):

… Some of the most interesting research reports studied the insulin in camel milk. French scientists reported two decades ago that “relatively large concentrations [of insulin] are present in the [camel] milk.” While some insulin is also found in the milk of other animals, including cows, a radioimmunoassay of camel milk “has revealed high concentration of insulin., i.e. 52 units/l,” according to a study in India.Insulin is, of course, a protein, which is normally destroyed in the stomach. But an Israeli report on “Insulin in Milk – A Comparative Study,” found that camel milk is unique in that it does not react to the acid in the stomach so it passes into the intestines ready for absorption. This study concludes that “there is a scientific justification for drinking camel milk by certain diabetic patients.”

Note, however, that some of these studies probably used raw camel milk in their tests. Pasteurization can denature the insulin in camel milk, but it depends on “the length of time and amount of heat that is applied.” The Desert Farms camel milk is “gently pasteurized.” Walid tells me that when he pasteurizes the camel milk he sells, it is for 30 minutes at 145°F.

Camel milk also has an anti-inflammatory effect, according to a Saudi study. That study went on to note a “significantly lower fasting glucose level.”

Yet another study, this one by researchers in Egypt, concluded that “daily ingestion of camel milk can aid metabolic control in young type 1 diabetics, at least in part by boosting endogenous insulin secretion.” This was a 16-randomized week of 54 young people (average age 20) with type 1 diabetes. Each day they got 500 mL of camel milk, which is about 2 cups.

The most impressive studies include several led by Rajendra Agrawal, senior professor, Department of Medicine, Diabetes Care and Researrch Centre, Sardar Patel Medical College in Bikaner, Rajasthan, India. This college is in the middle of the Thar desert, which has lots of camels.

One of seven published studies of camel milk led by Professor Agrawal compared camel and cow’s milk in people with type 2 diabetes as well as non-diabetics. This study of 28 men concluded that in people with type 2 diabetes camel milk reduces fasting blood sugar, post-prandial glucose, and A1C levels. In five months of the study the average A1C level went down from 8.4 to 7.3, while it went up among those taking cow’s milk. “It shows hypoglycemic effect of camel milk reducing insulin resistance.”

Milk isn’t a low-carbohydrate food. Two cups of cow’s milk has 23 grams of carbohydrate, and the same amount of camel milk has 22 grams.

After having demonstrated that drinking camel milk brings about a significant reduction in the dosage of insulin required to maintain long-term glycaemic control among Type 1 diabetes patients, scientists at National Research Centre on Camel (NRCC), India’s only camel breeding farm, spread over 689 hectares, in Bikaner, in northwestern Rajasthan, are now hoping for other discoveries about the animal that could convince its custodians to not give up raising it. …

The NRCC website says, “The proverbial Ship of Desert earned its epithet on account of its indispensability as a mode of transportation and drought power in desert but the utilities are many and are subject to continuous social and economic changes.”

For one, camels have special antibodies in their bloodstream that are capable of destroying harmful bacteria and viruses or neutralising other disease-causing poisons and pathogens. In medical circles, these antibodies are generally described as “nano antibodies” because of the speed with which these can travel through the animal or human body to reach the spot where they are needed.

NRCC director Dr Patil says that the antigen-antibody reaction in camels is similar to that in human beings, and for this reason, these antibodies, if harvested, can be used as a defence mechanism. “The antibodies need to be modified with biotech tools. We have been able to harvest such antibodies, purify them and test them on mice and rabbits,” he adds.

… Dr. Agrawal explains that camel milk passes into the bloodstream quickly because it has low coagulum. Coagulum is a substance that creates curds in the stomach.

With no digestive solids to impede quick assimilation, the high-insulin milk enters the bloodstream immediately, benefiting those whose own insulin secretions are inadequate. According to Dr. Agrawal, camel’s milk also “benefits cell function of the pancreas, another important benefit to diabetics.”

Camel’s Milk: A Nutritional Powerhouse

The National Nutrition Institute in Cairo analyzed the nutritional profile of camel milk, finding it to be high in…

Iron
Zinc
Copper
And especially high in Vitamin C
According to an article in The Washington Post, Camel’s milk is 3 times higher in vitamin C than cow’s milk and 10 times higher in iron.

Camel’s milk is also lower in cholesterol than cow’s milk or goat’s milk, and higher in levels of potassium, magnesium, iron, copper, manganese, sodium, and zinc.

Health experts tout camel’s milk as an immune system rehabilitator. Researchers speculate that it may also calm down the immune response to food allergens in individuals who have multiple allergies.

Finally, camel’s milk is low in lactose and very well tolerated by those who react to the lactose in cow’s milk.

In thinking about what important things I can do with this blog, like solving pressing human problems, I keep coming back to the fact that most people won’t make as much progress in contributing to the big human problems until they take care of immediate concerns, like finding and cultivating love. What’s your best proposal story? How did you do it? How would you?